docs: def deunicode(item):
      """ Convert unicode objects to str """
      if item is None:
          return None
      if isinstance(item, str):
          return item
      if isinstance(item, six.text_type):
          return item.encode('utf-8')
      if isinstance(item, dict):
          return {
              deunicode(key): deunicode(value)
              for (key, value) in item.items()
          }
      if isinstance(item, list):
          return [deunicode(x) for x in item]
      raise TypeError('Unhandled item type: {!r}'.format(item))